ALL Graphics Settings in Elite Dangerous FULLY Explained! (Ultra, High, Medium, Low, VR, 4K, 8K)

In this Elite Dangerous tutorial by EDTutorials by Exigeous we look at how to get the most out of the graphics settings in Elite Dangerous by fully explained them for ultra, high, medium, low and VR, 4K and even 8K gaming. In this exhausting analysis we look at each and every graphical setting Elite Dangerous has to offer. We'll look at how I performed these tests, the test system and the effects both visually and in terms of framerate on each and every setting available.
▶️ALL Charts
imgur.com/gallery/BXVNE26
▶️ALL Data (Google Sheet)
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
▶️▶️Testing System
Core i9 10900k @ 5.2Ghz on all cores
RTX 2080Ti @ 2.1Ghz
32GB DDR4-3600 RAM
512GB Samsung 970 Pro NVMe
▶️Forum Thread
forums.frontier.co.uk/threads...
▶️Reddit Thread
/ all_elite_dangerous_gr...
🎼Music
Artist: Miguel Johnson
Track: Artemis
migueljohnson.bandcamp.com/
▶️Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:38 Methodology
1:52 Presets
3:13 Texture
4:19 Shadow
6:29 Bloom
7:24 Anti-Aliasing
9:34 Supersampling
11:20 Ambient Occlusion
12:48 Environment
13:39 FX
15:30 Depth of Field
16:23 Material
17:05 Galaxy Map
17:52 Terrain
18:31 LOD Blending
19:29 Ter Work
20:13 Ter Material
21:14 Ter Sampler
22:22 Jet Cone
23:09 Volumetric
24:47 Conclusion
---------------------------------------
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[@Exigeous]

NOTE ON ODYSSEY: Yes, when Odyssey comes out I'll certainly be updating this for whatever changes we get there.

[@alratekk2631]

I just wanted to let you know that I figured out what jet-cone quality does. It alters the quality of things *in front* of the jet-cones, not the jet-cones themselves. For example, asteroids or bobbleheads.

[@Tcherkrick]

Great video! Looking forward to the next video on odyssey!

[@centronox]

You get a like and a sub for all your hard work sir, thank you for this. Look forward to seeing the new video after Odyssey comes out.

[@kato2182]

so i used all these settings for odyssey and i’m forced to keep supersampling to 1.0 anything lower and game is so crap

[@mrtrainee]

so what's the deal with the "ULTRAFORCECAPTURE" setting for terrain?

[@HMS_Thunderwolf]

Start of the video: this should be interesting 6mins in: ok, i need a note pad....

[@Exigeous]

Well that's why I add the chapter marks, so it's easy enough to skip around and use it as a "tool" when you come back.

[@HMS_Thunderwolf]

@@Exigeous doesn't remove my need for a note pad, but that was helpful.

[@tsilb]

25 mins in: I don't know why I'm still here, but I... can't... look... away...

[@gamesinsight3800]

Also needed Notepad :) Directly marking which settings I could use or not given the impact ;)

[@plutoidrepublic2765]

@@tsilb 500 years in: my skeleton must inhale this data

[@Exigeous]

This is BY FAR my most ambitious video ever - as such there are likely a few mistakes in it so I'll update this comment with new information. Specifically Volumetric Effects were impossible to work out making me think there is likely a bug somewhere. Please also remember I can only test with the machine available to me and as such this should be seen as a general guide to give you an idea of the impact of each setting, in short your mileage may vary - and greatly. It was a lot of fun to put together and has been on my to-do list since literally the day I started this channel, 2.5 years ago (as of writing). Enjoy! NOTE: I've linked a forum thread where I was discussing all this during my research and the Reddit thread for the video in the description if you're so inclined.

[@BendeBoas]

Thanks again, CMDR. Great video. o7

[@rempha]

Thank you for your effort on putting toghether all this information. This is very useful to optimize especially when I am running ED on my non-gaming laptop (NVIDIA Quadro M1200 which is based on GeForce GTX 960M).

[@thomgadget]

Fantastic work on this, very informative and extremely well presented. Thanks!

[@CmdrPPanda]

Bravo ,Bravo , Bravo . Exquisite piece of work. Nice to have this in your Exigepedia :)

[@acegh0st]

I was just noticing that there is volumetric fog falling from the ceiling when you are sitting inside a station. Perhaps that is somewhere you could test the effects of the volumetric effects setting?

[@DeanCalaway]

Regarding Jet Cones, I found very odd a ~14% impact for no visual difference, so I went to check it out and at 1080p there is a big one, I just made a video about it for anyone that cares to check. TL;DR: at Medium the Jet Cone gets very jaggy at 1080p, I would recommend High unless to anyone unless it's really chugging the system down. I'm guessing Exigious runs at a very high resolution that is just cleaning up that edge, but at 1080p there is a day/night difference.

[@yuboon]

I'm not sure why this is not being upvoted. Great job man.

[@darkzide7558]

THANK YOU for making this video.

[@Exigeous]

No no Darkzide, thank YOU!

[@wileywilson]

@@Exigeous. Yeah, thanks for doing this man. Really appreciate it. I remember pouring over "Nvidia's Comprehensive Skyrim tweak guide" when that game came out, for hours! BTW, I'm looking forward to your updated guide when the Nvidia 3000 series land! ;)

[@Malic_VR]

What I was trying to explain, you were running an edited graphics file because you used the video editor program, and is why you were not getting volumetrics to change. If you delete the XML and restart the game to have it rebuild it, you will be able to see them change in a volumetric area like a Lagrange cloud, things like asteroids use particle effects and you can see that change with FX changes

[@CAL1MBO]

L

[@Spartacusse]

In that case, is the difference really worth the 22% fps drop of ultra?

[@GhostGiraffe]

Great work! I had "optimized" these using trial and error but had no real idea what they really did. Now I realize I had a bunch of things wrong and have not only made changes but also learned what they do. Thanks so much for all this work.

[@Exigeous]

You're most welcome my friend, high praise coming from you for sure. Very glad you found it useful as it really was a shit ton of work to pull it all together.

[@GhostGiraffe]

@@Exigeous The biggest "small" improvement are quality of the orbit lines. No longer so aliased! It's a small improvement that makes such a difference.

[@dolemite888]

Not only is this useful for ED, but settings being explained in general. Clear cut and precise. Thanks man. Great job 👍

[@Sean_Lightning_OBrien]

As a VR player this is invaluable. Cheers

[@Farrcast7]

Share your settings?

[@Monody512]

FX Quality also controls the ripple distortion effects seen when entering supercruise or hyperspace, and around Thargoid ships. Setting it to medium or lower disables these effects. I personally dislike these effects, so I run on medium.

[@Exigeous]

Thanks for sharing - I certainly didn't intend this to be exhaustive to every single thing that's effected, as it was already a shit ton of work to figure out what I did. So I appreciate you sharing this.

[@jgp9260]

Your hard work putting this together, including editing, is highly appreciated. Thank you.

[@CMDR_Karkula]

This was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much for discovering these graphical performance benchmarks for us! You have no idea how much this'helps!

[@VortexianMSU]

Special thanks for the performance cost of each setting! I had stable 60 fps with an OC'ed 1060, upgraded to 2070S, cranked all settings up and started getting severe frame rate drops during neutron star encounters and less severe ones on stations. This video definitely saved me a couple of hours in optimizing "performance vs. quality" I'd perform through mostly uneducated A-B testing.

[@jaysonjota]

Man! This is a beast video just amazing thank you for taking your time to help us

[@brickstock]

This is gold! Thank you so much, I've been hunting for years for something like this. Well Done! Mad respect from a Birmingham, UK VR commander.

[@mancooncrest835]

The single most helpful videos on ED settings I have ever seen! Thanks a lot for the massive effort!

[@BamaChad-W4CHD]

Man what an amazing video! Big props to you for doing this. This is by far the best ED graphics settings video. We appreciate the time and effort you put in this. It had to be very challenging to say the least.

[@bournejsn]

This is AWESOME. Thank you so much for saving me crazy amounts of time fiddling and getting lost in whats working and what isn't. Thanks Exigeous!!!!!

[@rudhvelyn]

GREAT VIDEO! I love when people make highly detailed videos like this it is super easy to understand and can obviously see the difference. Very helpful! Thank you so much! :)

[@daro6009]

Awesome tutorial Exigeous, huge fun of your work! Always in point and short!

[@LRR-333]

incredible analysis, absolutely crisp and very objective, easy to understand, 2 years later still using the video to check for ideas, awesome work and thanks!

[@chrishills5200]

Watched the whole thing; super helpful! I can't wait to try these settings with my VR system. Thanks for the hard work.

[@AstroKing9619]

The amount of work put into this is awesome, you’re a blessing CMDR o7

[@gamesinsight3800]

Awesome work! I made notes about what I think could impact my VR the most and will check the performance again now. Very VEEERY good work and helpful. Thank you!!!

[@doobs46]

Thank you for this. I am getting ready to jump down the rabbit hole of optimizing my settings. I have spent days adjusting settings for other games. This should help minimize adjusting time.

[@T1Jafo]

Great content and explanations. A lot of useful information. Your hard work has proven itself once again. (Although it might not seem like it to the viewers, this has to be one your longest production videos. )

[@Exigeous]

Not only my longest but I think it's roughly _3 times_ longer than my next longest video!

[@mr.borcherding7386]

When reading the video description, I assumed you meant your analysis was exhaustive rather than exhausting. From the amount of effort put in, I would say it is both! I have played Elite for three years and this is the first video regarding visuals and settings I have found (supremely) helpful and has made the game look and run better. Thank you for your hard work!

[@rigjockey67]

Fantastic video !! I'm nerdy enough to find this absolutely interesting!

[@jimr5703]

Now THIS was a useful video. Helped me get the most out of my GPU and retain acceptable visual feedback with solid framerates. Took a little experimenting, but it's been fun! Subscribed.

[@Cirkaable]

Wow! Great stuff! Thanks for making this!

[@taylorbrown9849]

This video deserves more than a couple thousand likes; amazing effort Exigeous! I learned quite a few things for tuning my client for VR, and it runs much better now!

[@Pupixario]

Many times I came back to this video. Recently, built a new PC and revisited it. Just want to thank you once again for it and all the hard work you put in to it!

[@tuppers55]

WOW!!!! The detail in this video is amazing, thank you for the effort and your time.

[@Beypocket]

Watched this on your website, had to come over to like and say thanks for the video. Even on a 1080, tweaking a few of these helped me a bunch when I didn't even think I needed it before I watch.

[@javierCampeones]

Fantastic video. The most useful here on this subject. Great job and thank you!

[@JimJamsMusic]

Great video man! Your efforts are very much appreciated!

[@VerticalBlank]

This is incredibly useful; thank you for all the hard work!

[@daveangel2991]

Thank you very much for all your hard work on this. As I've recently bought a Rift S, I can now make sense of some of the settings, and tweak them accordingly. Cheers!

[@mrspaceman2764]

Best ED settings video ever. You made my holiday. 3080ti with Reverb G2 and you're guide allowed me to get the perfect balance of beauty and smoothness!

[@Adamek125pl]

Again and again I find your videos extremely valuable and enlightening. Salute Cmdr O7 and thank you very much!

[@riccardoortoleva680]

Very high quality video, thank you dude!

[@GerLeahy]

This is the video I have been looking for since I started playing the game. Thanks.

[@yankunflies]

This is a great vid. Thanks, Commander!

[@manic_miner]

Really appreciate you doing the work to put this up. Look forward to your Odyssey version more than you probably are to making it :)

[@Chrakker]

Great video and finally some clarification for these settings that dazzled many players for years!

[@awolfdrawsnear5864]

Absolutely excellent video. Thorough and well presented. Saved me so much trial and error time.

[@sosborn1000]

I've become a patreon on the strength of this video. So useful and clearly so much work to produce. Thanks once again Cmdr Exigeous! o7

[@DrTarte]

Well ain't this a treat. Thanks for all the work that went into this!

[@Flowtastic2000flo]

Wow mate. Such a detailed look. Thanks a lot for your research commander o7.

[@eRGo369]

such piece of great work cmdr!! thnx you!

[@Jarduk]

Awesome Video. Just got my Valve Index and this helped getting stable 90 Frames. Thank you!

[@samuraiogcc]

This video needs more love. Thanks for making it!!

[@major347]

Awesome 👍 most helpful video on performance impact i have see. Very well done.

[@GaveLJorgensson]

Thanks for all the hard work on this!

[@ilanshemes1562]

Dude! I can't believe you posted this video today! I installed Elite Dangerous last night on a laptop so I can play while not at home, but I was having frame rate problems and the graphics settings page looked overwhelming. And here you are with this video. Bravo! Thank you!

[@Exigeous]

Whew, good, I really was trying to get it out in time for just you, glad that worked out! :D

[@DJ70906]

Fantastic guide mate, just what i needed, Thank you, genuinely.

[@erikjalefors9377]

very helpful mate ! thanks for the great content !

[@Slavic_Sky]

Excellent, very informative and super helpful. Now I know all about graphics settings in ED. Big o7 to you cmdr!

[@Krampfey]

Your work is truly underrated, sir. Thank you so much for the wide range of informations in your Videos!

[@Ed-ty1kr]

Outstanding channel, I'm impressed. 👍

[@ArjunNalapatonline]

This is one of the most useful videos I've seen. Thank you so much for the work you did on this. It's really created an impact on running the game on my system. I hope you will update this once odyssey comes out as there may be differences and may be even more settings then. They do a poor job of describing these settings in game and that empty description box on the right in settings is a joke.

[@Exigeous]

Yep, as many have asked yes, I will absolutely update this for Odyssey.

[@wellzarak4382]

I really needed this for a long long time. Thank you so much for that, i really appreciate this job.

[@oneofdavidsmightymen]

Excellent and well worth your time to make this informative and useful video

[@owenjones2376]

Outstanding work. Massive thanks for this.

[@tnbison]

Simply outstanding. Will be tweaking settings as I rewatch the video again.

[@jeromepotier5369]

Well, I never saw a benchmark video with such in depth details ... kudos !!

[@wittmurse14]

Extremely useful information especially for VR pilots. Thanks!!!

[@kwidmayer]

Every one of your videos are informative, thought out and easy to follow. Thank you for the help. O7

[@bdlotus3504]

wonderfully concise and informative.

[@4englishlies875]

Great video, and will be very helpful when I get back in and play, I have kids that play a lot more than me. This will make a big impact on my game when I play I see it now. Thanks for taking the time to do this. When I looked at the Graphics settings I was like hey kids what dose this mean? ......lol

[@Hyporis71]

One of the most usefull videos for Elite i ever have seen. Comming from console to PC this is really helpfull

[@WagWaggers]

Epic video!!! I shall be using all this excellent information to tune Elite for my PC. Thanks CMDR o7

[@gort5583]

Great work! Really appreciate your time and effort.

[@CyberPrussian]

This is an awesome video, thank you for your work!

[@potteryjoe]

Definitely valuable info. Love to see an update with the newest settings that weren't included.

[@TheNepharim]

Thank you for a great video and your research, I just started with ED and VR, a really great help👍👍👍

[@o.s.2056]

Great video, very helpful. Thank you very much.

[@TheAlchemisification]

This is excellent timing. Having just brought a new PC running a 2080 Super and an Acer 27" Raptor I can now really ramp things up. Thank you very much!!!

[@gauravvmishra]

Thank you Cmdr. Keep up the good work. Greetings from India.

[@dabruuzer]

Fantastic, and greatly helpful, video. I am a returning player (last played in 2016) and am now relegated to a laptop with only a 1050 in it (at least it has an i7, SSD and 16GB of DDR4), but playing on an attached 27" 1080p monitor. It runs very well, surprisingly, now that I have tuned it based on your recommendations. Subscribed!

[@cmdrablearry3815]

Many thanks for the time and effort you put into this video. I reset the game graphics on my reasonably high end computer using your advice and it's made a genuine difference. Vert much appreciated my good man.

[@SledgeFox]

Thank you for your time and work you put into this to help us, very much appreciated, thank you very much!

[@greatdanexlks]

Wow. Thank you once again Cmdr Exiguous. Hopely I can fix Elite with your help.

[@AdmLancel]

This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time, as I've found my GTX 1070 is sort of on the edge between a compelling VR experience and space sickness, with things like the SRV and stations causing the framerate to drop. I'll be sure to make some adjustments based on your findings, as I'm pretty sure I'm using one or two of those settings with next to no visual impact and yet have a disgusting performance hit. Thanks for all your hard work, Exigeous! It's much appreciated!

[@Tremeslay]

Amazing work sir. Respect to this piece of art. ♥

[@sunekjeldsen7630]

GREAT video, thank you!

[@fleetc]

Fantastic work!

[@kwlxxi4813]

Thanks a lot for this video. Much appreciated

[@chrisrowland7782]

Amazing video, and much needed! The detail is impeccable and it's a perfect achievement in elite dangerous content creation! Next challenge, editing the graphics configuration file to make elite even more realistic, going beyond what ultra settings do and really benchmarking your rig! Bonus challenge, dive into reshade and how it can be used to really make elite as real as it can possibly look. Hit me up of you want help diving into some of that.

[@Exigeous]

You just nailed the next one in the series - the XML file, Reshade, etc. - everything you can do to make it look even better. Wanted this to be the baseline as it was already crazy long.

[@DChamp56]

Wow, GREAT job!!! And thank you!

[@BZAKether]

Excellent video, thank you a lot!

[@robertlee2473]

Awesome vid, just upgraded from the rift cv1 to the index and i was getting bad fps with a rtx 2080 until i used your vid to optimize everything :)

[@Star51984]

Great video. And a lot of required! Respect o7

[@vvvAVATARvvv]

Thank you very much. That was very helpful.

[@SmashPhysical]

Thanks for this video!! My graphics under Odyssey were markedly inferior to what I had under Horizons, but thanks to the advice presented here it now looks great!

[@commanderretyu]

This is simply excellent! Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to making Elite all it can be for US!

[@DavidEvans1958]

Brilliant video. I use a 1080 graphics card with HTC Vive. Can't wait to make the graphic changes you recommend. Thank you so much for your research and time on this project.

[@Exigeous]

Personally I made a lot of changes based on what I learned and now I'm getting beautiful results and don't even have to turn things down when I get into combat, etc.

[@nastygothic666]

Great graphics guide!

[@NeoFire99]

Neoflame here- Seriously the best most helpful video ever!!

[@Yiowns]

This is amazing !!! such a detailed work, you should be QAing for Frontier !